June, 18, 2009 

BY DONNA GORDON BLANKINSHIP

AP WRITER

SEATTLE (AP) — Two years ago, Candide Uwizeyimana could not speak a word of English. A survivor of the Rwandan genocide, she lost her family and later was separated from those who rescued her from an orphanage, fed and housed her, and paid for her education.

Survival was the focus of her first 16 years. But drive, determination and some luck have given Candide the opportunity to live a completely different life in the suburbs north of Seattle, where she saw snow for the first time and graduated from high school.

Will she go on to a university next or study at a community college and continue working and saving money from her job at the Safeway grocery store?

These are some of today’s concerns but they are not her story.

A LIFE FILLED WITH TRAGEDY, OBSTACLES

Rwanda was filled with fear and panic in 1993, months before the country would explode in ethnic violence that would claim as many as 1 million lives. Villages in the mountainous region of Gikongoro in southwest Rwanda were not immune from the atrocities.

Life was becoming unbearable for Joseph Rurangwa and Beatrice Nilabakunzi and their five daughters, Candide and her four sisters, Leaticia, Adeline, Angelique and Theodette.

When the family dog started bringing home human body parts, the couple decided it was time to leave the village where Candide had always lived. Amid the crackle of gunfire, they set out on a dusty road, joining a stream of people trying to escape.

For 3-year-old Candide, it was a confusing and scary time. Men and women were yelling at each other, children were crying, and all Candide could hear was the insistent voice of her father urging her and her sisters to walk.

Somehow they made their way to the Republic of Congo, about 50 miles away, and settled in the Kashyusha refugee camp. The United Nations provided food, clothing, medicine, blankets and plastic sheeting to craft into huts.

Because she was so young at the time, Candide doesn’t remember every detail from this violent period in African history and she is unsure of her family’s role in the conflict.

Around the time she left Rwanda, millions of ethnic Hutus fled into neighboring countries following mass killings of ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus. Tutsi military followed and killed people in refugee camps while Hutus continued to launch raids back into Rwanda.

Although most of the deaths happened during a few months in 1994, the violence went on for about four years.

The refugee camp where Candide’s family found itself wasn’t home, but it was safer than Rwanda, for the most part. The family settled in and stayed for about two years, until intermittent waves of violence in the camp made the parents decide to set out again.

On the road, heat and fatigue nagged the girls and their parents, but they managed to stay together at first.

But Candide can never forget a turning point that came at the village of Ishanjyi. The family was resting there when gunfire broke out among the refugees.

Candide’s father handed her a bag of food and talked to the 5-year-old about how difficult the next hours and days would be. Keep walking no matter what, he told her; if the family got separated, they would find each other later along the road.

More gunfire and screams echo in her memory now — along with the recollection of finding herself entirely alone.

In the days ahead, she followed her father’s instructions, dragging herself along on sore feet, sleeping near strangers each night for warmth and security. She doesn’t remember eating during that time, though she continued to carry the bag of food her father gave her.

At night, people called out, searching for their families. But no one called Candide’s name, and, she adds, “My voice was almost gone because I had been screaming and crying for days.”

Sometimes she stopped by the side of the road watching families stream by, hoping to spy her mother or father. One day a man she recognized from the refugee camp stopped to ask her where her parents were and invited her to walk with him. He fed her and even carried her across a river. But after walking side-by-side with him for days, she remembers sitting down by the side of the road, too tired to go on. He begged her to get back on her swollen feet and continue. She refused.

“Do you want to die?” he asked.

“Yes,” she says she replied.

He moved on, and later some women helped her but then walked away, not taking her with them.

“I didn’t know why,” she says. “Everyone was trying to save themselves. Some of them were abandoning their own children.”

She remembers this time merely as a series of long walks and lonely nights, but at last, after days or weeks, came a joyous reunion: Candide met her father and younger sister, Adeline.

Together they reached another refugee camp in Congo, but Candide remembers, “I couldn’t stop thinking about my mother and my other sisters.”

In the camp, the United Nations aid workers gave extra food, such as biscuits and milk, to those who were very sick, including Candide and Adeline.

But hunger was everywhere.

Some people started to sneak off to the native Congolese gardens to steal food —mostly Cassava roots. When caught, the thieves were beaten severely — sometimes fatally.

“I could hear these innocent people crying and screaming until they died,” Candide said. “I don’t think I can describe how terrifying it was. I will never ever forget the sound of someone who is dying.”

Not long afterward, shooting began at the camp, and her father rushed to tell Candide and Adeline to get ready to flee.

Another long trek brought them to the Ubangi River. To get his daughters across the strong current, Candide’s father traded some clothing for two spaces on a makeshift boat.

She recalls the horror that followed: After 10 minutes on the river, water started to seep into the boat, and one side started to sink. People screamed and crushed each other while trying to move to the other side. The boat tipped back and forth and Candide and Adeline fell into the water.

They clung to each other as they sank, then popped back up. Candide was sure she was about to die.

But some men pulled them out and dropped them on the shore by their father. He and several strangers pumped on their stomachs and chests to push the water out and help them breathe again.

After that, they continued their journey. The days and nights started to blur — until one night when, as Candide remembers it, her father tried to wake her from a deep sleep, and she thought she was dreaming.

He walked away, probably thinking she was trailing just behind. But she was asleep, and when she awoke she was alone again. She never saw her father or her sister again.

She says she doesn’t know how she went on from there, but her strength of body and determination is clear to anyone who meets Candide.

Eventually, with other refugees she arrived at Brazzaville, Republic of Congo, and was moved into a camp orphanage, where life stabilized for a time.

One day, a woman told her about a businessman from Cameroon, who might be able to help her if she moved to another camp.

Jean Damas took Candide in at age 9 and changed her life. He sent her to school and gave her a job in his store.

Damas, 39, a food seller in Yaounde, the capital of Cameroon, said in a telephone interview from his home that a Cameroonian woman, who was his client, brought Candide to him, hoping he could help her.

“Can you care for this child? You can give it a better life,” said Damas, who also fled Rwanda during the genocide.

At the time, Damas was in a refugee camp himself, but when he and his wife and children moved back to Cameroon, Candide moved in with the family.

Her adopted family continued to look out for her future — which, at one point, led to another hard separation. They heard about opportunities for orphans to go to the West and encouraged Candide, now a high school student, to apply with the United Nations for refugee status.

This would get her assistance and allow her to go the United States, Australia, Canada or anywhere else offering to resettle refugees.

She spoke no English, but passed every test the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees put her through.

When the day came to fly to the United States, Damas’ whole family came to the airport to see her off.

“I was really sad,” she said. “He did everything for me. They were just like my proper parents.” She has not been able to discover what happened to her biological family.

From his home in Cameroon, Damas expressed confidence he had helped Candide find a better life.

“I’m sure that if she can finish her studies, she’ll be able to earn lots of money. What I hope,” he said, “is for her to have the means to bring me there to visit her.”

LIFE IN AMERICA

Today, Candide faced another turning point, though one full of promise instead of terror.

On June 14, she graduated from Shorecrest High School in Shoreline, a suburb north of Seattle. There was a party to celebrate, with friends and the foster family a refugee group placed her with.

She’s applying for colleges in the area, and education is her No. 1 goal, says foster mother Christiane Munyemana, who is from Burundi, the country just south of Rwanda, and who has fostered orphans from Africa for 15 years. She says Candide has what it takes to succeed in the next chapter of her life.

“She takes initiative and takes adult responsibilities. That probably helped her a great deal in her travels,” Munyemana said. “Some people just give up easily. She did what she needed to do to get where she wants to be.”

AP Correspondent Edward Harris contributed to this story from Lagos, Nigeria.

Photo: FP-Rwanda.jpg

AP Photo by ELAINE THOMPSON

SPEAKING CANDIDLY — Candide Uwizeyimana, shown on Feb. 10, shares her experiences as a child refugee during the Rwandan genocide. Uwizeyimana, who often wandered from one refugee camp to another all by herself, graduated from high school in Washington state on June 14.